He’s just a junior at Mifflin County High School. He already has a state cross country championship to his name. He’s also won a pair of indoor 800m titles. He’s a bronze 800m outdoor medalist, too. And now he holds down the third-best indoor 800-meter time in the country after an electric run at the New Balance Nationals in Boston.

Mifflin County Huskies’ runner Carter Smith is special, that’s for sure. Smith ran a lightning fast 1:48.66 to finish third in the 800m race, setting the third-best mark in the USA so far this year. That time was about two and a half seconds faster than the time he ran two weeks ago in winning his second indoor state championship.

Smith and some of his Huskies’ teammates were running at New Balance as part of our local Juniata Valley Striders club.

The Striders’ Distance Medley Relay team (Reese Cubbison, Conner Lynch, Wyatt Kauffman and Smith) finished in a very impressive 10th place. Maybe even more impressive, the team took more than 10 seconds off their time from their recent fourth place finish at the state indoor championships.

And, while they didn’t place, the 4×800 relay team (Cubbison, Aidan Scavetti, Kauffman, Styers Oden) did shave more than three seconds off the time they ran at the state indoor championships less than two weeks ago.

An incredibly successful weekend for an incredibly talented group of young people from our area.

Congratulations to everyone!

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